Summer
by Shadow's Whispers
Summary: Mortals can become discontent even with the youngest and sweetest of gods. And even gods are not immune to the blackness that lurks in the backs of their minds...


_Sweet summer child, our sweet summer child, bless us this season._

Asriel smiled at the praise that came with the turning of the season. Summer had just started, and it was the first where he would be performing his duties alone. As he basked in the prayers, he was determined not to fail in his tasks. He would help the harvests grow by shading them from the most brutal sun, raise the summer flowers, keep the land green and fertile and beautiful, until it was time for the fall to set in. It would be hard work, but the Mother, his mother, assured him of his capabilities – he was ready for this. His face beamed with love and hope for those who had turned to him.

The vines were the first to sprout, serving as the base for all his work, as they were sturdy and hardy. If the sun was too harsh, they could be bent to provide shade with little consequence to themselves. Should the rains be too much, their roots would absorb the worst of the deluge. Should the rains be too little, they would leech out nutrients for the other plants. Greenery and flowers could be built off of these vines, and they sported the golden flowers that adorned his family crest.

They sported thorns as well. Despite his best efforts to keep the large, sharp obtrusions at bay, the humans and monsters alike continued to be careless and prick themselves as they tended to their lands and played in the shade beneath the vines. Rueful glances were sent towards the heavens, but they said nothing. Even so, the Summer Child took note, as he took note of any dissatisfaction in his subjects. Just as Mother had taught. He worked hard to fix the mistakes – provided a soft covering for the thorns that doubled as a water source and a wound salve; blocked the dangerous areas with flowers; ensured there were soft resting places away from the spines.

Still, his subjects managed to injure themselves – they dubbed his vines a gift with a curse. Asriel took this to heart, and it began to affect his work with the rains and the sun. Fields began to scorch, then were deluged with rainwater in an attempt to bring them back. The alternating pattern discouraged the humans, who's glances to the heavens became more frequent. Prayers to the Summer Child began to dwindle, even as those accursed vines protected the crops, provided relief to sunburn and parched throats, and tended the neighboring grounds. Asriel became desperate to win back the mortals' favor, to provide to them all that they wanted and needed. He began to feel fear – for himself, for his subjects, and for the balance.

 _Sweet summer child, what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north._

It was something that a lesser god had mentioned to him, and something that his apostles had said as well. He heard it over and over again as he expressed his fear in his inadequacy to those around him. They told him that this was nothing, that the vines he had provided kept the mortals from suffering, that he had nothing to fear. Come winter, they would realize just how important those vines were when their stores were fat with crops. The Summer Child should not fear for the loyalty of his subjects, nor think himself inadequate. His worries were misplaced, and he would develop finesse as more summers came and went.

Even so, Asriel was worried, and he was afraid. He had heard the whispers now, not of discontent, but of fear and anger and hate. They whispered things his father would call blasphemous, his mother, unfounded. Every word reached his ears, and all he could hear, day in and day out, were the constant chants of fidelity lost:

 _"The Summer Child is not so sweet. Watch as he tries to burn our crops! He cares naught for us._

 _"We keep pricking and poking ourselves! Can we not play and relax in the shade? He has sown evil throughout our fields._

 _"Quiet now! He'll hear, and then the rains will never come! We'll be doomed by your tongues!"_

Asriel shook his head, trying to get rid of the words that were consuming his thoughts. His own mind was being consumed, turning against him. It was as if he could feel the balance slipping from him, the darkness begging for him to take, take, take! But he to resist fought with every ounce he had – he would not become what his subjects feared. He would not become what he feared, what he knew was lurking at the back of his mind.

 _Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time._

Even so, that dark whisper in the back of his skull grew louder and louder, clearer and clearer every day. The Sweet Summer Child was growing, and not as he would like. His stature increased, horns enlarging, dark markings crawling across his face. Through blackening eyes he watched on with what little HOPE he had left, channeling all his love and determination into his work. Before winter came, he would show his subjects that the Summer Child still cared for them, still had his eyes set upon their bright futures.

Then summer was over. The mortals' stores were full of the crops Asriel had languished to save. Healing balms and ointments for all manner of wounds and freezes overflowed their shelves, all made from his vines. Larger thorns had been fashioned into weapons to protect against the winter creatures. Yet, they did not thank him. Instead, they claimed they had made the best of the god's curse, that they had succeeded in defying him.

The blackness shot forward, seizing on that one incident of ungratefulness. It turned Asriel's mind into darkness, his eyes inverting so his pupils blazed white against a void of black. The hate fueled another horrifying growth spurt. Whether it was the last of his conscious or a trick of the black voice, Asriel had the wherewithal to hide himself from the other gods in a vain attempt to avoid what he had become. It only helped the darkness to wreak its havoc before divine intervention.

If the fear of winter was the long night, as those lesser gods had said, then Asriel would burn into his people a new sense of fear. One of the eternal day, when the sun blazed on without relent, when the rains would not come, when the heat would not relent to the cool breezes of autumn and the cold snow of winter. It would scorch the land, set ablaze those that strayed too far from the scant shade. The vines he had planted across the land provided the only refuge, a slight to the humans for so thoroughly devaluing his gift. Those same vines encircled him like a crown of thorns, a symbol of his destruction.

Death haunted the cold lands of winter, but now it would walk freely under the sun, taking all who took no heed to the Summer Scourge's warning. He was the ultimate god of hyper death, greater than the One of Judgement, above his scrutinizing gaze. He was above it all, and he would watch the world burn from on high, playing his vines like a fiddle, showing just how much LOVE and HOPE he had for his new world.


End file.
